Touring the Lower Cache River Swamp Trail:
A veritable bayou trip down near the southernmost tip of Illinois, this section of the big Cache River is renowned for its breathtaking cypress and tupelo trees, some of which are 40′ in circumference at their base and over 1,000 years old.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Trip Report Date: April 6, 2024
Skill Level: Beginner
Class Difficulty: Flatwater
Gradient:
< 1′ per mile
Gauge:
n/a
Recommended Levels:
Water levels are always reliable.
Put-In + Take-Out:
Lower Cache River Access off Access Road, Ullin, Illinois
GPS: 37.29732, -89.05306
Time: Put in at 1:00p. Out at 3:30p.
Total Time: 2h 30m
Miles Paddled: 5.5
Wildlife:
Egrets, herons, songbirds, wood ducks, and turtles.
Shuttle Information:
n/a
Background:
From the Miles Paddled desk of “And now for something truly different,” I present to you the Cache River a long way’s away from home down near where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi, a prospect that, like so many bodies of water, I’d have never known of were it not for Mike Svob’s guidebook, Paddling Illinois. But this is truly unlike any body of water elsewhere in his good guidebook. I can say this with such confidence because it would never occur to me that the prairie state that is Illinois after all, a Great Lakes state no less, with metropolitan and architectural Chicago at its crown, home of the Blackhawks and White Sox, the Bulls, Bears, Cubs, and FIBs, an upper Midwest state where it can get really cold and where blizzards occur – that such a state could also feature cypress swamps and poisonous snakes a la Louisiana.
Illinois is really long, nearly 400 miles from the Wisconsin border to Cairo, where the southern tip of the state is pinched between Missouri and Kentucky. To put that in context, that’s 100 miles longer than the empire state of New York from the Canadian border to the Statue of Liberty. Too abstract? Let’s try closer to home. The Apostle Islands in Lake Superior to Platteville is only 300 miles. In fact, the southern tip of Illinois is farther south than Richmond, Virginia – Richmond as in the former capital of the Confederacy, aka The South. Just saying. Southern Illinois is, well, southern. Indeed, while on the Cache River, you’re closer to Birmingham, Alabama than you are Wrigley Field.
Fun fact: the southern tip of Illinois is the northernmost reach of the Gulf Coastal Plain, a swath that spans from Corpus Christi to Cancun to Cuba. And Cairo, Illinois. Crazy.
Way back in the day, glacial floodwater from what would be the Ohio River gouged a ginormous floodplain (cue The Pixies) that later created a Cache River that would saunter around a rich tapestry of wetlands.
Comprising the largest complex of wetlands in Illinois, the Cache River Wetlands is the northernmost cypress/tupelo swamp in America, full stop. That’s wild. And while it makes up for less than 2% of Illinois’ total land area, the Cache basin provides habitat for more than 11% of the state’s high-quality floodplain forests, nearly one-quarter of its remaining high-quality barrens, and over 90% of its high-quality swamp/wetland communities. Home to over a hundred threatened or endangered species, the Cache River Wetlands harbor some of the oldest living trees east of the Mississippi River. As such, the Cache Wetlands have been designated a “Ramsar Wetland of International Importance.”
To be fair, the Cache basin is not the bayou-swamp equivalent of the Boundary Waters – for that matter, it’s not even Sylvania – at least with respect to paddling. The Cache is approximately 110 miles long and initially flows north, then east, before swinging southwest to the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The venerable Svob provides only two trips on this big river, a combined distance of only 10 miles. I’m not a math guy, but even I can calculate that total is less than 10% of the whole river. I don’t want to veer too far from my lane here – especially for a 7-hour drive* – but the poor Cache has been badly impaired by clear-cutting, agricultural channelizing, and dredging since the late 18th Century. As such, Svob disclaims that much of the river upstream from Karnak, only four miles east of this trip, is unpaddleable due to severe erosion and logjams.
* I drove down to southern Illinois to see the solar eclipse in 2024. And yes, those four minutes of totality were worth the 14 hours of roundtrip driving, no two ways about it.
The good news is that the Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge was authorized in 1990, to acquire land for habitat restoration and to provide public access to the Cache River wetlands. Svob’s “swamp trail” trip, which is recapitulated here, is not the only place to paddle around bald cypress and tupelo gum trees, but it’s likely the easiest, logistically speaking, as it involves no shuttling. It’s arguably the quaintest, too, as I don’t think motorboats are likely to wend through the swamp here. (Alternatively, there’s Horseshoe Lake, about 20 miles southwest as the vulture flies, which is way more open and less intimate, but still exhibits extraordinary flora.) The lower Cache does provide viable paddling trips from the township of Tamms (love that name!) down to where Svob’s second Cache trip is located, which is the last leg of the river itself. These will be more conventional point-to-point river trips through a veritable (and questionably penetrable) wilderness. Think Deep South. Think “Paddle Faster, I hear banjos,” except it’s Zydeco. Interestingly, in the town of Cache, a levee separates the river’s original course to the Ohio via a shortcut diversion to the Mississippi.
It’s the trees that are the main draw here – the bald cypress in particular. Growing out of the water itself, these bathing beauties give a whole new meaning to wetlands and floodplains. They’re also hundreds of years old – many of them even a thousand years old, the original millennials! And many of these are 40′ wide at their bases, called “buttresses.” Imagine that: 1,000 year old trees that are 40′ wide at the very place you can appreciate them best while in a boat. They’re truly spectacular species – and the inspiration behind this trip, indeed, the Cache River itself.
Overview:
There’s a ton of parking, bathrooms, water, and an informative kiosk at the end of aptly named Access Road – and an also a boat launch access. This is a choose-your-own-adventure trip, since you start and end at the same place; where you go and how long you want to be out there is totally your call. I’m a take-a-different-way-back-home-than-how-I-got-there kind of guy (much to the omnibus amusement, confusion, and frustration of those closest to me). I like seeing new things rather than replaying them in reverse. So, I made a loop of sorts rather than running an errand. You can do either, however, since the swamp here is a 1.25- square mile rectangle with no current. I think most paddlers are wont to tootle around to make a small loop of things by following the marked signs along the canoe trail, making about a 4-mile trip.
The highlight – really, the only reason to come here at all – are the cypress trees. Of these – and they’re everywhere – the grand old man is the so-called “state champion” estimated to be a thousand years old. (Paddlers will be forgiven for conflating this huge, old cypress with the “state champion cherrybark oak” located nearby and viewable by foot along the Heron Trail.) This impressive sentinel is located close to the boat launch – and can be viewed also from a wooden platform along a hiking trail that runs parallel to the river. All the old cypress trees are surrounded by knobby bits of wood called “knees” that sort of resemble morel mushrooms.
The trail wends in a counter-clockwise fashion and, if followed, leads you to Eagle Pond, a small oval-shaped open body of water surrounded by trees along its periphery. Wooden plants adorably named “buttonbush” are the scruffy stuff that otherwise comprises the swamp (along with the cypress and tupelo trees) that make it a little like a maze. But you can’t really get lost here, even if you tried.
After Eagle Pond, the flora opens upon the Cache proper, where it looks like a “real river” and not a swamp. I paddled this down to the bridge and then below it, where there’s A) a staff gauge measuring the river (that read “328,” whatever that correlates to), B) a landing in case you did want to shuttle, and C) just downstream a few houses/buildings on tall pylons, including the local outfitter. Beyond this will be a sign declaring the river an “organized hunting area” that is private property that should not be entered. It is Illinois, after all… There’s an earthen dam near here (as well as upstream) that more or less plugs up the swamp so that there’s always enough water to paddle, so there’s not much purpose in venturing to the western end.
I turned back around and ventured as far east as I could until the buttonbush and deadfall became impenetrable. This was particularly fun, as there’s no signage and little likelihood that other paddlers bebop around this part of the swamp. But again, there’s really no wrong way to go. Either way, you’ll end where you began.
What we liked:
This is a unique ecosystem that makes for an unforgettable experience. It’s a rare paddle trip where the trees are the stars of the show, not the water or surrounding landscape. These bathing beauties are truly astonishing to behold. And I love that Illinois lays such titular appraise upon its trees – “state champion” – as though they’d competed in Springfield like high school athletes!
This paddle trip is but one way to appreciate the trees. Additionally, there are several very good hiking opportunities all within 15-ish minutes driving distance – Section Eight Woods, Big Cypress, Heron Pond, etc. If you have the time and inclination, these only enhance the overall appreciation of the unique beauty of southern Illinois. Flared buttresses, buttonbush, knees – I mean come on!
What we didn’t like:
Honestly, virtually nothing.
However, I was surprised to see a farm field due south where the Cache is more like a river. I didn’t notice it until powering-though eastward/upstream after I’d ventured as far downstream as I could, which was about 90 minutes into the trip. If you stay thick in the swamp, you’ll never see the field – especially once foliage shoots out. But it was an abrupt juxtaposition, thinking I was in Cajun country, suddently to see a farm field. But again, it’s Illinois.
I was surprised and a little disappointed by the underwhelming wildlife. No exotic birds, no poisonous snakes, no gators. I didn’t come here for that, but still, being this far south, I was hoping to see something less Midwestern. Maybe it was bad timing.
If we did this trip again:
I wouldn’t do anything differently, and I’d definitely do this again. One could easily imagine this trip being surreal and spooky under a full moon!
Alternatively, I think the lower Cache would be really cool to paddle, where it’s a snaky river. But I’d never do that by myself – the shuttling alone would be insane, and, you know, banjos…
Speaking of music, I kept wondering what a mash-up of Uncle Tupelo and Cypress Hill would sound like. “Insane in the Anodyne”, anybody? Free for the taking.
***************
Related Information:
Map: Cache River State Natural Area
Outfitter: Cache Bayou Outfitters
Wikipedia: Cache River
Photo Gallery:
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